Bracketology: Latest NCAA Tournament projections

The men’s volleyball bracketology and NCAA Tournament projections have arrived with Selection Sunday almost a month away.

Off the Block each week during the rest of the regular season and throughout each round of the postseason will unveil its latest projections to the NCAA Tournament.

The men’s volleyball Division I-II NCAA Tournament is comprised of six teams. Automatic bids are awarded to the winners of the Conference Carolinas, EIVA, MIVA and MPSF conference tournaments, and the NCAA men’s volleyball committee selects two teams for at-large bids.

The three-person selection committee meets following all of the conference tournaments to decide the at-large teams and the tournament seeding. For an in-depth look at the criteria used by the selection committee and the Off the Block bracketology projections, check out this breakdown.

The field for the NCAA Tournament is scheduled to be released during Selection Sunday on April 23.

The NCAA Tournament will begin with the two play-in matches and the two-top seeds earning byes to the NCAA Tournament semifinals.

Off the Block is in its seventh season of college men’s volleyball bracketology. It has in previous seasons accurately projected 93 percent of the teams in the NCAA Tournament field.

PROJECTED NCAA TOURNAMENT FIELD

LAST FOUR OUT
UC Irvine (15-6)
UCLA (14-7)
Lewis (17-5)
Ball State (15-6)

Quick breakdown: Despite recently suffering its first loss of the season, Ohio State is still firmly in control of the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament. Ohio State holds the advantage against the projected No. 2 seed Long Beach State in almost every major selection criteria category, including strength of schedule and head-to-head record. Along with these two teams, BYU and Hawai’i are the front-runners for the two at-large bids. If either of these teams struggle down stretch of the regular season, though, both UC Irvine and UCLA could overtake them in the bracketology. The battle for the No. 5 seed could get interesting if King wins the Conference Carolinas. King is one of three teams in the nation to have already reached the 20-win milestone and holds an edge over Penn State in several criteria categories. However, the Tornado have the worst strength of schedule in the nation — a criteria category that in previous years had an increased significance.